New Mobile T630

Electronic Cousin of T610, not Cosmetically though. I think 610 is more cute and sexy than 630. T610 had the awesome curves and looks that anybody would want. 630 is same on the features side and so-so on the looks. No complaints though. and this time I have insured it. So much for a small piece of electronic device which makes or breaks lives and relationships. So much packed in this small instrument that literally you can spend one whole say with it and not feel bored at all. All the new gadgets have Mp3 players, FM Radio, Internet and also tons of games and MMS. Wat more do u need from a mobile phone and some occasional calls too.

Manic Monday

It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my funday
My I don't have to runday
It's just another manic Monday
-- Bangles

Thats sums my mood for the day. What a beautiful day outside. Nice weather and so inviting to sleep all day. And here I am sitting in my cubicle in front of my comp. Lifes like that.

Still no concrete evidence in Rove case and I am just waiting to see the Google News flash up saying Rove is Guilty. I also wish it says Bush and all his aids are guilty of the Iraq War. Well.. I am not hoping for too much though. London bombing and 4 people captured, watever happened to those who attached the Ayodhya and many more who keep attacking J&K everyday or every nook and corner of the developing world. Well.. Nobody cares for those who cant make the news or who dont have money.
Been reading lot of books lately. Jack's autobiography and his 'Winning'. Pretty inspiring stuff really. Yet to get my hands on Harry Potter and Half blood prince.

Rove on the Rover to Moon!!!

Haha.. Catchy title eh!
Karl Rove... I am missing Jon Stewart's jokes on all the Rove investigation going on in DC. I hate Rove for the main reason that he was the architect of the Bush's election campaigns and mainly the Re-election in 2004. Now that there is so much of information coming out of the box everyday and more evidences emering to prove that he may have been behind the CIA leak. I would like to see the Dems get back at him. They are already calling for Bush to remove Rove from White House. I hope he goes to Jail, not because I have anything against him, but it will be a defeat for the Bush team. I also hope Karl Rove spills the beans about Bush team's real intentions on going for the Iraq war, which is very unlikely to happen. He may probly be removed from his office and given a nice Retirement in Some Villa on the beaches of Jamaica or Virgin Islands or maybe in the Posh Colonies on the MOON with a Land ROVER to explore the landscap of the Moon.

PotterMania(c)

Potter.. Potter..Potter...
I dont have a kid brother or Kid sister or else I would have heard only Potter..Potter everywhere. A great fan of Potter myself or should I say a great fan of JKR. I am also eagerly waiting for the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I havent reserved a copy myself so far. I will wait for som more time. Last time around I caught hold of a 'pdf' which was doing rounds on the net just after the release of the book. Can u imagine I read the 700 odd page book on the comp putting 2 nightouts. Damn... I was so jobless. This time I will wait for paperback to hit the streets and I will buy at a cheaper price than the hardbound copy. So who is dying in this volume 6? Could it be Dumbledore?

Sarkar - Ek Soch

Watched it yesterday on my Comp. Would still like to see it in Big screen. Amitabh has done full justice to his role. Somehow I felt some discontinuity or lack of smoothness in the flow of the script. Good that they didnt try to fit in songs just for the heck of it. But would rate 'Nayagan' far better in this category of Don movies ripped off from 'God Father'. Cant obviously compare either Kamal or Amitabh to the legendary Marlon brando as the DON. Good Movie nevertheless. Lots of movies to be watched in my list.

Word Origins

I was just wondering what if Sandwich were Sandwitch and what would have been the origin to it? Then i realized that I did not know the origin to Sandwich itself. My Frnd and I googld and my frnd stumbled upon this good site. So here you go
http://www.brownielocks.com/wordorigins.html (courtesy Deepti)

Its got some real good word and phrase origins. Good site for more Trivia. Idle mind does wonderful things such as these. I am still looking at a good model to buy. I narrowed my options to 2 models. K700i of Sony ericsson (advanced T610) and Moto V3 RAZR (pencil thin Moto). Now please do let me know if you have heard about any negative points on any of these. I am reading all reviews online. But if you have any info please pass it along.

Ra Ra Ra.... Raa... Raa ...Raa....

Ra Ra Ra.... Raa... Raa ...Raa.... Raa ...Raa... Raa... Ra Ra... Ra Ra Ra.... Raa Raa Raa.... Raa Raa Raa Raa...
Fortune Fame
Mirror Vain
Gone Insane
but the Memory Remains!

Ash to Ash
Dust to Dust
but the Memory Remains!!!

-- Hail Metallica.. You Rock....

Question of the Day ???

My friend recently asked me this question
"Observation: while going on train or for that matter a bus or a car, if I sit on a window or stand at a door, I always feel air rushing in. I hope u all feel the same. If not, please ignore the rest of the mail.
Question: if so much of air is entering the system from all possible openings, how is it going out? otherwise we may someday see a phenomen of train burst, if we dont find an answer."

Please let me know if anybody knows the answer and I will pass it on to my Curious friend.
He is planning to collect Question of the week. If he does and if its intersting I will pu it up here.

Time for a new Post

Still havent bought a mobile! What am I waiting for... But I do find it convinient w/o it. I dont have to bother to call anybody and for all those who constantly tell me 'You havent called me in a long time. You have forgotten us etc etc" .. one simple excuse... I lost my mobile.. Let us se how long this goes until I finally have to buy a new one. The problem is I cant settle for any mobile which has lesser features than T610 and obviously that mean more money.
Been very busy at office in the past week with some project presentation and hence no recent posts. That should answer ever curious Sathyusus comments on Why I dont post very often?
So Whats new in life? I had a small House warming/Get together in my newly rented 1 BHK. So much for a rented house was my answer to all the pestering from my parents, my aunt and family. All thats well, ends well. All my family members seemed to like the place. Its in 2nd floor right in front of a park and right next to it is 3 empty plots. So I get all the breeze and an excellent view from the terrace. But except for the noise from the cieling fan, which I hope to fix soon, everything else is Ok with the house.

Adios! Amigos!

Protocol to be followed when you lose a Mobile

When you lose something thats worth a lot then it hits you that you never had precautions to prevent it or retreive it. So the first thing Y'all do is to find out what your IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number. There are different ways.
1. It should be written on your receipt or box that comes with mobile
2. Punch ' *#06# ' and then IMEI number will pop up on your screen. This code maybe different for different service providers. So if this doesnt work for you then find out your code to get the IMEI number from your sevice provider. This will come in handy

To block your SIM or your number from misused you need to file a poilice complaint and submit the complaint form to the service provider so he can block your SIM and give you the same number when you get a new SIM. I think this is cool. Even if you ve lost contacts in your phone book others can contact you. Ofcourse there are Pros and Cons :-o). But then again you ve got to shell out some money as Bakshish to the police guy to get the copy of your complaint. Aint that sucks.. you lose an expensive mobile and your SIM and then you shell out more money to block it.

Another thing I did was to write down all the Credit card info(number, exp date and contact number) and DL number in a safe place in case of emergency.

Mobile Philosophy!

Obviously it can't be Mobile Philosophy bcos Philosophy aint mobile! So it has to be Philosophy about Mobiles :-p). The term mobile here doesnt refer to the adjective 'mobile' which according to dictionary means 'capable of moving or being moved'. It refers to the Mobile Cellular instrument which is being used by the humans for communication. Ofcourse even the animals like dogs use it thinking its a bone and they can chew. In those cases the instrument more or less ends up in a dustbin. Well coming to the core pholosophy here... Can one live w/o mobiles? The relationship between a human (man, in this case) and a mobile is very special. Whenever u feel like talking, writing, reading u use the mobile. People also use it to store numbers and in some cases use it as calender and also to keep their accounts in their daily lives. Some even use it as watch for wake up alarms. In those cases its more or less shutoff immed or thrown away at the instant of the alarm sound. So when mobile becomes a core part of your daily life, how can you live w/o one?

How to cope up with the loss of your mobile?

Losing a mobile is like breaking up with your girlfriend or ending a relationship. It could be very painful. Your whole world suddenly looks dark, not that it was any bright before. You ve lost all the contacts you had(as if you ever had any contact with the human life out there), bcos they were through your mobile and you have not stored the contacts elsewhere. All accounts back to zero and Nobody owes anybody anything. Its something like somebody messed up with all your bank accounts(did u ever have a positive bank account??). Losing a mobile means, you ve got to wear a watch all the time. No more 'blackberry thumb' or in this case 'ericsson fingers'. Its like you are at the bottom of the deathvalley. So you ve got to get a new one to carry on your already non-exitant life and to improve your defunct lifestyle. But choosing a new one is a very difficult choice. There are so many Models out there. You ve got to make a good choice. The choice you make can make or break your life. How will you know you ve made the right choice? You must feel the vibes to choose 'the one'. You always make this choice in the hope that you dont lose this one as well. At the sametime you ve got to move on in your life. Cant think about your old mobile, however good it was and compare the new one with the old one. But this time you take all the precautions so that you end this relationship also. But aint the First time, always the Sweetest??
Ok.. this is by far the cheapest and lowest I can ever get in terms of PJs, but isnt it a good way of attracting your comments?? So please do comment and let me know of the available choices I have out there. Its like setting up your friend on a blind date with someone you know :-o).

Obituary for my T610

Its a sad day in my life :-( . I lost my Cute Sony Ericsson T610 mobile. That baby was very sleek and cute. I will miss it. I am still wondering how it went missing. I got out from home to catch my office bus. I realised that I was bit late to walk to my usual bus stop to catch it. So i took a city bus to my regular office busstop to catch the office bus. Somewhere along the way, either I must have put my hand in pocket and my mobile must have fallen down and didnt realise it or somebody must have flicked it in the bus. The painful part is I had stored my niece's photos in it and all my phone numbers. So for those who read this blog, please email me your phone number either to my office email or my personal email. Its sad but I ve got to move on in my life w/o my cute T610. Its amazing how we get stuck to such petty materialistic things in life. And life w/o a mobile is very difficult these days :-o)

Parineeta - The Married Woman

Kaash eisa title hota!!! then it would have definitely sucked big time. This new hindi movie is a must watch. Its got all the Devdas like settings, but only far better in every aspect including the key factor called 'acting'. If Madhuri was the saving grace in Devdas, then new actress Miss. Balan has done an excellent job in this movie. Its a very well made movie from the start to finish and should be watched in a big screen. You would clearly see how much Saif ali khan has matured as an actor over the years and even Sanjay Dutt has done justice to his small cameo. Overall its a good movie only to good to be missed. Ppl who read this blog could watch and come back and comment on it. I would greatly appreciate that!

Back to Quizzin...

Long time since I did some quizing. This sunday, Raju and I, went and took part in KQA's centennial celebrations - General Quiz, a quiz which I attended after a long time. Though we made 21 out of a possible 44(Thanks to Raju), where the cut-off was 30, we thought that was a decent performance. The finals was awesome as usual with the chennai team taking the honors. I ve Got to conduct a Dumb-C in office as well sometime in the next few weeks. So working towards that.
Jus started my week by watching some Jon Stewart's Daily show videos. The best way to start your day is by watching Daily Show at your workplace :-o). I also noticed that none of mainstream media in the US is covering the leak of Downing Street memos on the Iraq War. I looked for it in NYT, WP but in vain. I hope there is an enquiry into this and the press gets to it. I would like to see the press exposing the dirt and scam behind the Iraq War plans. Well..Lemme get back to my Daily Show videos and then maybe work a little bit today. hehe...

Finally Some relief

Yes... I finally found a 1 BHK for rent. Well it didnt quite come at the price I wanted, but a compromise worth it. Now I can chill out peacefully. Nothing's quite worth mentioning to write today. So I will come back later with something interesting.

Still House Hunting...

I will tell you this. House hunting in Bangalore is a big pain. You see all the classified columns and go look at a house. Theres always something missing in that house or it is ridiculously expensive. I wish some big metoer falls in Bangalore and land prices drop down. Cant live with prices soaring up sky high. PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF COMING DOWN TO BANGALORE FOR ANY JOB. Look somewhere else. Bangalore sucks.
Dunno when i so picky and choosy and when i am going to get a house for rent. I hate the real estate agents also. They always hike up the prices and too demanding. I HATE YOU ALL YOU DAMN BROKERS. HEAR ME RIGHT! ITS PLAIN HATE.
well... Lifes been going on fine so far with all the calvin and hobbbes and Tintin and dilbert links I keep getting from friends. Heres a few links to make your day folks... Enjoy maadi...

http://www.uffen.org/calvin/index.htm

http://www.anuragjain.com/chgems.html

http://tintincomics.topcities.com/index.htm (its got all tintins online)

awesome stuff
http://homepage.eircom.net/~odyssey/Quotes/Popular/Comics/Dilbert.html

Dogbert's advise on Dating:

Dogbert : "Women like men who boast about their accomplishments, but they hate men who boast. I will be your designated bragger, allowing you (Dilbert) to appear Humble."

Dilbert : "One potential problem with this plan is that I have no accomplishments."

Dogbert : "Yeah, and if she isn't wearing make-up we'll be honest too."

Dilbert's Boss:

"I saw the code for your computer program yesterday. It looked easy. Its just a bunch of typing. And half of the words were spelt wrong. And dont get me started on your over-use of colons."

Wally (My fav character)
"Its now time for the Wally report, a weekly status update. My income is 80% of industry average, Enthusiasm is at 63% of capacity and my Ego Shield is holding at 15%."

"Your enthusiasm is up from last week."

"Yeah, someone left the supply cupboard unlocked."

Well.... finally I have updated my blog. Hope to update it soon with more interesting Geeky and Nerdy stuff such as these.

Looking for a house in Bangalore

Thats the most toughest thing you would ever do in life, if you were in such a situation. The rents have gone up so much in Bangalore city that you wish your father was a rich man and had a big house there. I hear the real estate prices have almost doubled up in the last 2 yrs. Trying to find time out of your busy work life to look for house is such a pain these days. Thanks to the Freeads and Admag(classified mags) job is somewhat simplified. All this, when you are not ready to just throw out money as if u dont care about money, and miserly like me when it comes to rent and advance.

Run Sriram.... Run....

After all that hype I created about marathon, it did turn out to be a good experience for me. I finished my 7K run well within 40 minutes and now I feel maybe I could have gone for a bigger challenge of Half-marathon. Well there's always next time and there's Bombay Marathon in Jan-Feb. Full Marathon (26 miles or 42 dot KM - depending on whether u go by Metric or British units) was flagged off at 6 AM and Half-Marathon (13 miles or 21dot KM) started at 6:30 AM. The Dream run or Celebrity run for 7 KM started off around 9:15AM. Yours truly! was well prepared and finished quite peacufully. But as I heard from many Marathon runners, there was not much cheering on streets like it was in Bombay and it was very hot during 7KM run. Pretty exhausting. I hope they change this event to Winter or atleast Spring time next year. I think more than 10K people participated in 7K run and it was almost like a marketing event for many sponsors and big corporates, sporting some colorful Tshirts with logos. Some took it seriously and ran the whole course like I did and some just did it for fun and ran and walked the whole way. Either way it was supposed to be for fun.
But the amazing thing was, there was a 65 year old man who finished half-marathon and a middle aged lady too. And there were many old people like these who finished the races. The smile on their face spoke of thier personal acheivement. It was quite inspiring to see that. We also witnessed some physically challenged people finishing the 7KM run in their wheel chairs and crutches. "Hats Off" to these amazing fighters. If theres anything we can learn from them, it is the fighting spirit and how to overcome obstacles. I personally went and congratulated some of them. It was a pleasure and honor to shake hands with them.
And... Thats all I have to say about that !!!

D-day has arrived finally!

Tommorrow is May 15th and come 6AM the Lipton International marathon will be flagged off from the Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore. I will be running for the 7km Dream run tommorrow. I have been practising a little bit for quite sometime now. I was almost tempted to register for the half-marathon until I had a knee injury lastweek by hitting a stationary motorbike, while I was riding pillion on my firends bike. I am just loading up on my fluid level in my body and also taking in as many calories as I can to endure the heat and tiredness I will be encountering. Wish me all the luck folks!!! May raingods favor me, if the temperature becomes unbearable tommorrow. Personally I think this event should be conducted in Winter in Bangalore.

My Trekking and Kayaking Experience on River Varahi

This is long due. I havent blogged in quite a while now and as I was very busy at work and other social activities. This post is dedicated to my Trekking experience and Kayaking on river varahi during the last weekend of April. I am posting a friend(Vinu a.k.a coconut)'s version of the entire experience. Thanks Vinu for letting me use your trip diary, ofcourse with some editing. It goes something like this....
Let me take you all back in time on April 29th when a group of 30, many of whom havent seen each other before, on a trip which will bind them strongly in a strong bond of friendship.
Friday - 29th April, 2005
We boarded the bus after a long wait at JFWTC employee's gate, picked up a couple of people on the way and headed to a raodside dhaba outside the city for dinner. On the way we had an “introduction round”, where everybody introduced themselves revealing their embarrassing moments and previous trek experiences and all of us laughing at their expense. The intro round continued during dinner and afterwards in the bus
Saturday - 30th April, 2005
We stopped about seven in the morning for tea at a roadside hotel in Mangalore, on our way to Kollur. We entertained ourselves with a game of Antakshari with Tapori (Deepti) and Mr.Antakshri (Somansh) and a couple of others as lead singers till we reached Anejeri Nature Camp. Once at the camp we first gathered at the outhouse for a briefing session by Spider (SriRam - Thats me!!!), and then headed for our tents. [Well lot of people ask me why I am called spider. Longtime back some of us, my colleagues and I, went to Spiderman-part2 and from that day onwards I have ben nicknamed spider for no reason. I didnt mind as it was a cool name and besides I get MaryJane :-o)]
After a rather quick freshen up of our sticky selves we all gathered for breakfast (chow-chow bhat and boiled eggs), of course yours truly(Coconut a.k.a Vinu) came late and was lucky to have boiled eggs at least for breakfast. We boarded the bus, with some of us carrying life jackets, and took the bus for 6 km and started out trek for another 5km to Arsinagudi Falls. The trek was quite tiring for most of us. But some from the group were pretty smart and trekked real fast and reached the falls and chilled in the cold water for eternity. The rest of us trudged along like zombies-all zonked out. After a jump into the Arsina water and enjoying the pressure of the water on our sore bodies, we had lunch (which was carried by Chandan our dentist guide). All of us famished souls ate the veg pulav to our heart's content. Looking at the trek back there was mixed emotions among the group. Some felt ecstatic and some, like me, felt like homicide. Nonetheless we all trudged back again to the bus. Life was good again when we all sat in the bus resting our worn-out bodies.
We decided to go to the famous Mookambika Temple on our wayback to the camp and saw the deity at the special darshan. We enjoyed watching the Kerala style Architecture of the temple, temple dancers, the more than 900 lamps structure, people, etc.A few of us (Somansh, Spider, Purnatha, Tushar, Thakur, and me) got held up and delayed going back to the bus because of some change in plans and the bus left us leaving behind two informers to tell us that it will return soon for a pickup(Ragavendra and Nataraj). The bus did come back for us and we reached the camp passing thru the “starry-starry night”. Spider was trying to figure out the constellations and teach me as well. Thanks dude I learnt "a lot". - I need to add my view on this. The sky was literally filled with stars that night and we could see it clearly, thanks to the pitch darkness in the camp owing to the non-availability of electricity.
After reaching the campsite we freshened up for the nth time in the day. During dinner, we had some performances from each of us. Tapori’s dance, Joshi’s “aanke wali”, Tushar’s pole dance, Hetal and Purnatha’s ghazals, Romit, Thakur and Kowshik’s Sholay dialogues, Somansh’s guitar, my mime of my boss, and so on. We hit the sleeping sacks at about 1am. Of course a few of us (Mr.Antakshri, Spider, Uncle & Aunty duo and yours truly) sneakily stayed awake till 2:30am singing songs.
Sunday - May 1st, 2005
The camp woke up by 5:30am and we were all ready by 6am (we shocked Spider as he thought we’d be late). Some from the group are indebted to Tapori, for it was her early morning cackle that woke them up and remained awake and I was unfortunate to have not heard her! We had breakfast and had some photo ops (making of Charlie's Angels). Sriram (alias Spider) finally managed to shepherd us all together into the bus and we headed straight for the kayaking spot. The thirty of us were divided into two groups. The plan was that while one group would be kayaking the other would be doing the rope activities and after lunch we'd switch. The group I was with, did the rope activity first and spider's group went for kayaking. It was fun with all the guys guarding their “family jewels” during the rope walking and the girls having a good laugh. Meanwhile Spider's group was having fun at kayaking on the river.
Spider's account of his kayaking experience - The whole group after our practice went for kayaking in rapids. We went through many rapids one by one and in one of them romit and his mate Scorpion King(a.k.a pradip) erred and their kayak capsized leaving romit behind in the water. Luckily we were all wearing life jackets and he was picked up from the river by one of the instructors. After that eventful episode we all returned back to camp for Lunch and ropeactivities.
Lunch was extremely yummy and by then the other half of the group had returned from their kayaking (not to forget that Pradeep and Romit’s kayak had capsized). Now it was our turn to go kayaking. After getting the necessary instructions from Dev, (Greek god for the women folk, and guardian angel for all), basically our instructor, we proceeded with a little bit of practice of kayaking and then we headed straight for the rapids. Somansh and I were the boat 1 and we went right ahead carving the path for the others. We were initially terrified (or at least I was) about how the whole thing went about. At every pit stop Somansh kept reminding me "kyun tension le rahi hai, enjoy nature" and I finally let go of the tension and enjoyed nature only after the fourth rapid. I would say we did equal paddling; maybe he did a few strokes more than me. We finished kayaking at about 4pm and were waiting for the bus and the rest of the group to come and join us. Few of us took a light shower under some sprinklers in some one's garden. They must have scared the owner off. We all had tea at a local shop near where the bus had been parked, changed into dry clothes, had the last few photos taken by Shyam and team and then we left to Bangalore via Mangalore.
On the way we had an awesome and breathtaking three-hour gaana-mela where everyone, except a few shy ones, danced on top of a red box (our improvised stage). Tapori and I kept frequenting the stage as fillers. the plus ones' danced too with their respective counter parts and the official couple (Bala and Anita) took the trophy away with their waltz. Gireesha stunned us again with an on stage performance. Life was good again when we stopped at Mangalore for some "pette puja" (dinner). The non-veggies and veggies chose their respective hotels for their dinner and we met back at the bus in an hour. Now, I think for the first time no one moved and went straight to sleep.
Monday 2nd May, 2005
Most of us woke up at about seven and realized that we've reached Bangalore. The awesome trip had come to and end. The bus dropped people off at points near to their homes and headed straight to JFWTC.
Conclusion and Moral of the Story:
The trip was freakin' hot, sweaty, exhausting - but what the hell we all lived our lives to the fullest during these days! Kudos to the Sponsors JFWTC for the transportation and the organizers and the entire group for making it a big success.
Due acknowledgements to Vinu Paul Manikathan, a.k.a Cononut, for this trip diary and also her involvement in creating our photo gallery of the trek. Please click on this link for photos of the trip http://photos.yahoo.com/trip2005may Pictures speak a thousand words